Stuff

YouGov’s daily poll for the Sun has topline figures of CON 41%, LAB 39%, LDEM 12%. Rather to my surprise there is no meaningful increase in Labour’s support from Ed Miliband’s first conference speech as leader. Once again, more stuff to come either later tonight or tomorrow morning.

UPDATE: I meant to update this last night or today but didn’t get the opportunity. The rest of the YouGov/Sun poll following Ed Miliband’s speech are here, and paint a rather mixed picture.

On one hand, the direct questions about the speech were all pretty positive – 36% think EM will change the party for the better, 35% that he won’t change it, 12% that he’ll make it worse, 53% believe that he is serious about reducing the deficit, 23% think he isn’t. 71% think he was right to criticise the last government and 56% that he was right to say the war in Iraq was wrong. The percentage thinking he will do a good job has also risen to 50%, from 43% before the speech.

But on the downside, he hasn’t managed to dispel the negatives he was clearly seeking to address in his speech – 32% think the unions will have too much influence (compared to 33% before the speech) and 45% think his election means the party has moved to the left (compared to 42% before the speech) – plus of course, the speech produced no obvious boost in voting intention.

Tonight we have not only the normal YouGov/Sun poll, but also an ICM poll for the Guardian.

I can see where you are coming from. Much of the pain of the cuts has been trailed, and this will probably reduce the impact on The Coalition.

That is not say when they really do bite, polling won’t reverse for the Coalition, but for Labour to really get a good lead, they will need a clear and positive alternative narrative. This will take time, and the print media in particular won’t make it easy for Ed to get this across, as they did for DC in Opposition.

I still see the Lib Dems taking most of the brunt of a fall in Coalition support, as many Conservatives still see the size of cuts as a virility symbol, without too much consideration on the effect of the poor and disenfranchised. The Libs are much softer in this area and will, in my humble opinion, face slaughter in areas like North of England.

Cozmo – I agree that all we’ve had so far is talk and as far as I’m concerned the review is yet more talk – it’s how the cuts actually and factually effect voters’ lives that will influence the polls and I think 2 years is a reasonable estimate for that to filter through.

Garry – Agree with you that the Lib Dems will take the biggest hit but suspect that again much of the hit is already priced in. Also agree with you on the Tory vote subtantially holding up for the time being, I am convinced that the vast majority of Tory voters want to see significant cuts, rightly or wrongly.

@MARCHESE
I am in the unusual position of agreeing with Cosmo on this. It seems you agree also. My own view is that the cuts (real ones not talk ones) will damage the coalition in the polls, but as you say, they have time to get over it.

@GARRY K
You are right that Tories are pro cuts. I think in general you are wrong about us being afflicted with big willy syndrome, on this issue at any rate. If I could be convinced that spending money on top of money on top of money, really helped the underclass I might agree with you, but I dont.

@ Roberta: “Hardly a surprise really. He dumped on his brother, who has had the sense to go to the backbenches, as he knows that Ed will make a fist of everything & doesn’t want to be tarnished. David will bide his time, as his time will come again when he has to rescue a divided& beaten labour party after the 2015 election. Labour party diehards may kid themselves that he is wonderful but the general public do not like people who so visibly shaft friends & family.”

Garry – Agree with you that the Lib Dems will take the biggest hit but suspect that again much of the hit is already priced in. Also agree with you on the Tory vote subtantially holding up for the time being, I am convinced that the vast majority of Tory voters want to see significant cuts, rightly or wrongly.

Looking at the Local Election data, the LDs share of the vote is already suffering, mainly going to Labour. If the current level of the share of the vote remains consistent, the LDs stand to lose a lot of Councillors in May and probably control of many Councils they currently have.

Not wanting to labour the points, Northern cities are looking very vunerable for them.

My point was – is – that the publication of the review itself will have no instant negative effect on the Tories in the polls. I am not saying that they will never have an effect – it’s clear that due to their size they will, in some ways we expect and in others we don’t. It is not inconceivable that negative long terms effects on the polls will be mitigated or counteracted by other positive ones.

@GARRY K
I have already posted a reply to Barney Crockett today regarding the LDs (other than former leaders) in Scotland. Up there as per the English northern cities, the LDs are now perceived as limp wristed Tories, they inevitably will suffer. Your comments seem to suggest the good work they have done removing Labour at local level, will be undone. Whilst the Conservatives pick up a smaller but handy bunch of votes in middle and southern England. It makes one wonder how Clegg reads his options.

Six is minimum number for men as well I think, so a maximum of 13 women could be in the Shadow Cabinet. Having said that, I can’t find the revised election rules for the SC so anything could be true.

Anthony was asking about whether the leader still had co-option powers. The number in the SC is 26 and there are 7 ex-officios, so it doesn’t look that way. I can’t imagine though that the leader has no room for maneuver.

I have already posted a reply to Barney Crockett today regarding the LDs (other than former leaders) in Scotland. Up there as per the English northern cities, the LDs are now perceived as limp wristed Tories, they inevitably will suffer. Your comments seem to suggest the good work they have done removing Labour at local level, will be undone. Whilst the Conservatives pick up a smaller but handy bunch of votes in middle and southern England. It makes one wonder how Clegg reads his options.

Roland,

It looks likes we might partially agree here…probably something new for the both us :-)

While I dispute the good work bit, I think that Nick Cleggs strategy for his party will leave the LDs largely a middle-class, south of England party, that will surrender the North mainly to Labour (rural Scotland I exclude from this analysis, but that an entirely different kettle of fish).

Nick’s positioning of the LDs as libertarian Centre-right party does give him a huge issue, as he may well end up fighting in small pockets of the South against the Conservatives. The accomodation of LD and Cons giving each other a clear run, as was banded about, would help him.

Without this assistance, he could well end up with a small fringe party.

There appears to be a misunderstanding regarding Dr Fox’s battle with the treasury and specifically Afghanistan. As in, Labour were heavily criticised regarding under funding that war and now the coalition want to make cuts.
This is not the case. The army will NOT suffer reductions or cuts until after the next GE. And then perhaps not, depending upon the defence review.
What is at stake in this argument is the long term strategic equipment possessed by this nation. In other words, Carriers, Air Superiority fighters and of course Trident. So no cuts for the men and women in Afghanistan. Hopefully we will be out of there by 2014 anyway. I do hope this clears the matter up once and for all. But I doubt it.

The 12% of people who say they would vote LD in YG polls have been regarded as something of a core vote, or as someone put it, hardened supporters of the coalition.

If that is the case, the recent poll should be a worry to the survival of the coalition. Before I continue I should point out that I think the coalition is likely to last the full 5 years, I am simply reading the data.

31% of LDs say they would prefer a yellow red coalition, while 40% say they prefer a blue yellow one. Whilst this puts blues still firmly in front as the most preferable bedfellow for yellows, the gap has been closing considerably for some time.

I foresee a narrative, whereby the majority of LDs start to state a preference for a red/yellow coalition. Certainly, if red are to back AV and go into coalition with yellows in Holyrood next year, then the stage is set for a significant majority of yellows to want to walk away from the coalition.

Thus, reds now have a choice: they can charm the knickers off yellows or they can bash them out of existence. Given the resilience of yellows in recent months to stay stubbornly at 12%, I think the former choice is becoming a more realistic strategy. The difference for reds now is that the red/yellow coalition would be on leftist terms not centrist ones. A healthier place of negotiation and one which would make the left of the party more comfortable.

@ GARRY K
I meant good work from their own view point of course.
You see you hit on something I have felt in my water almost since the GE. There will be some sort of electoral pact/deal, whatever the likes of Simon Hughes might say to the contrary. In the past, I have been roundly criticised for adding coalition polling figures together, Con 40 LD 13 Lab 37, so thats 53 vrs 37 then. This is partly tongue in cheek, but it does make one wonder.

My reading of Ed’s speech would suggest to me he would prefer to work constructively with the Lib Dem Left. He did seem genuinely open.

I support this, as my local Council is unlikely to return outright control to anyone. As I argued at our last meeting, Labour needs to work with someone to get control of the Council. Between the Conservatives or LDs, it has to our Yellow friends. I would add that the word on the ground is that the LD Councillors here are unhappy with the Coalition, and could be persuaded to support an open Labour Party.

@Roland
Thank you for your comments 10.56.
I guess we will both have to lie down in a darkened room for a while !! But it does show that this forum can reach across party lines from time to time, which is surely a good thing.
:)

You are right, the leader doesn’t get extra picks for the shadow cabinet per se. I was thinking about other picks for his top team, if ‘his’ people don’t get elected. Sadiq Khan is one of my top 10 but if he didn’t make the cabinet, would Ed make a senior role for him?

@ Éoin

Yes, six is a minimum, not a maximum. I doubt if there will be any more than six elected, however. I’m not saying who my personal choices would be, I’m Kremlin watching.

@OLD NAT
I fully expected to be put back in my box when getting involved in Scottish politics. However, whilst I do know enough to separate Invernesshire from Glasgow, I have assumed that any politician who is even tainted with Torism has lowered his/her chaces dramatically.

I don’t think that people will be that influenced by whether or not Ed Miliband is perceived to have shafted his brother. He will be judged on his performance as leader now that he has been elected to that position.

Roland – you’re in excellent form – I enjoyed that crack about the LDs being “limp-wristed Tories”….

Whilst I think DM did the only thing he could do in the circumstances, I think his desire to avoid constant comparison with his brother-to the latters detriment as leader-might be frustrated.

If the polls go well for Labour & EM personally, then DM will fade in the Press.

However, if Labour don’t look like gaining a credible lead post CSR & into 2011, and EM’s personal ratings disappoint, I can see the Press focussing back on DM.
…what would he have achieved ?-what thinking has he been doing?-what is he up to?-will he come back to rescue the Labour Party from failure to meet EM’s promise of victory in 2015 ?

So long as these two are in HoC at the same time, I cannot see the intended firewall against the Press as being effective-unless EM is spectacularly successfull.

Meanwhile his brother in HoC will be a sword of Damocles hanging over him.

“I can’t imagine Ed Miliband wanting to launch any illegal wars in the near future. But that only makes it that much more important for future Labour ministers to understand what went wrong and ensure that the leadership is kept on a tighter rein. They can’t move on. Labour need to set up a truth and reconciliation commission to exorcise the ghosts of Iraq.”

Not sure they need to bother with a truth and rec commission to come to the conclusion that the entire cabinet were, in equal measures, in thrall to his holiness the Rev T Blair and in a headlock applied by Mr A Campbell.

With regard to the comments about scotland above. My own preduiction for next year is that in the North the Tories, SNP and Lib-Dems will all lose votes to Labour, but in terms of seats that will produce pretty much a retention of the status quo, except perhaps the odd one or two seats where there are particular local issues or strong candidates.

Of course in terms of local elections, the Scottish ones are delayed to 2012 and are now conducted under STV, which wa the main reason that Labout lost control of so many authorities, and which might prove to save the Lib-Dems to some extent.

If David Milliband was still harbouring leadership ambitions he would have sought admission to the shadow cabinet and presented his brother with the problem of how to accomodate him.
He will be in the wings, available only in the event of major malfunction, and not hoping for it imo.
Meanwhile Ed needs to get a voice coach. He was rather garbled early yesterday morning on Today. Any problems with enunciation can be exacerbated by tiredness ect.
Nevertheless David Cameron will be feeling some nervousness about the prospect of facing the ‘merdeux’.

Really interesting ths political tracker poll – hidden away in the stats (and unmentioned by the paper) was the fact that a vast majority of TORY voters want higher taxes on the rich, a higher minimum wage, better workers rights and more taxes on the banks:

22% of LDs say that they think Ed M has moved the party to the left and also that it is a good thing. That is about 3% of their 12% – roughly a quarter of their memebrship.. 18% of LDs say that they think Ed M has move the Labour Party to the left and that it is a bad thing…. half of LDs don’t know (understandly you might think).

Either way, it seems that LDs increasingly have a dilemma on thier hands..

Tonyotim, I have just been in the Highlands and I hear there is some suggestion of an independent anti-coalition Lib Dem list in several seats for Holyrood next year. How might that impact do you think?

It would be interesting. Conceivably LD Scotland could come out against the national coalition let candidates all contest under the one umberella. The problem (or not depending how you see it) is that there is as of yet no figurhead for LD Scotland… Who would lead the anti-coalition LDs?

The Beveridge Group, which is the organsiation around which lefties in the LD congregate has only one Scottish MP. That is Allaisdair Carmichael. He is a gov. whip, if I am not mistaken. Thus, Lefties Scottish LDs, if indeed there are any, are in few supply in the Westminster Batch. English and Welsh MPs (LD) seem more to the left than their Scottish counterpart.

Personally I doubt it would happen on that kind of level. Unless they managed to attract a high profile candidate, my guess is that independant Lib_dems standing against an official candidate would scoop up the votes that would otherwise be lost to Labour and maybe a few others. On one or two seats it might make a difference, but I have my doubts. In terms of the regional list in those areas, Lib-Dems are unlikely to win extra seats on the Highland list unless they lose a couple of contituencies, so an independant Lib list might actually pick up a seat, but at the expense of another party – Green (;-(), SNp or Tory probably. In North East, could possibly lead to a loss of Aberdeen South, but again I have my doubts, but splitting the Lib list vote might be more damaging.

The only thing that would really change that analysis, IMO, is if a sitting MSP stood as an independant Lib, but I don’t see that happening at the moment.

I am sorry, I am absolutely ignorant of Scottish politics. The impression I got was of a grass roots effort, not necessarily with MP backing, reflecting distaste with the Coalition over cuts, and ready therefore to make a more credible common cause with Labour in a coalition in Edinburgh than the official Lib Dems could. I was on the Findhorn in D Alexander’s constituency where the dilemmas of a Labour/ LD coalition next year might, I suppose, appear especially acute. Lovely part of the world mind you.

And whilst you’re right that the SNP are running second to the Libs in most of their Northern seats, there’s usually quite a distance. The smallest majority on the new notionals is Aberdeen South at 7.3%. Add to this that 2007 was an SNP high wter mark, vs rather average performances by Libs and Tories and a bad Labour result and what is likely (IMO) to be a swing against the SNP, and the fact that some of these areas have a very entrenched Liberal vote and you get my reasons for not seeing much change. On the other hand, I do think the Libs will lose Dunfermline and edinburgh central (notional) to Labour, but will get an extra list seat in Fife to compensate.

It must also be questioned how alienated Highland Lib-Dem voters are? Many of these areas were Tory rather than Labour before they became Liberal. Until May it will be hard to know where in Scotland Liberal support is leaving. I would suspect the vote will hold up better in the North, but less well in Aberdeen and the Centra belt, although Edinburgh itself might buch that trend slightly.